Ричард Морган: The Dark Defiles

“You boys plan to paint the town, you aren’t going to start in here. Got it?”

Quiet. Wine dripped wetly off the jagged angles of the bottle stump.

The two remaining Majak looked at their companion, curled up on the floor and twitching, then back to the wet gleam of Egar’s makeshift weapon. Rage and confusion struggled on their faces, but that was as far as it went. He saw they were both pretty young, reckoned he might be able to brazen this one out. He waited. Watched one of them rake a hand perplexedly back through his hair and make an angry gesture.

“Look, Dragonbane, we thought—”

“Then you thought wrong.” He had his reputation and his age—things that would have counted for something among Majak back on the steppe, and might play here, if these two hadn’t been away from home too long.

If not, well…

If not, he had bare feet and a broken bottle. And glass shards on the floor.

Nice going, Dragonbane.

Better make this good.

He put on his best Clanmaster voice. “I am guesting here, you herd-end fuckwits. My bond with these people compels me, under the eyes of the Dwellers, to defend them. Or don’t the shamans teach you that shit anymore when you’re coming up?”

The two young men looked at each other. It was a dodgy interpretation of Majak practice at best—outside of some small ritual gifts, you didn’t pay for guesting out on the steppe. And lodging at a tavern or a rooming house, say, in Ishlin-ichan, wasn’t considered the same thing at all. But Egar was Skaranak and these two were border Ishlinak, and they might not know enough about their northerly cousins to be sure, and in the end, hey, this old guy killed a fucking dragon back in the day, so…

The one on the floor groaned and tried groggily to prop himself up.

Time running out.

Egar pointed downward with the bottle. Played out his high cards. “And what do your clan elders have to say about this shit? Stealing another man’s whore out from under his nose? That okay, is it?”

“He didn’t kn—”

“Pulling a knife on a brother? That okay with you, is it?”

“But you—”

“I’m done fucking talking about this!” Egar let the bottle hang at his side, like he had no need of it at all. He stabbed a finger at them instead, played the irascible clan elder to the hilt. “Now you get him up, and you get him the fuck out of my sight. Get him out of here while I’m still in a good mood.”

They dithered. He barked. “Go on! Take your fucking party somewhere else!”

Something gave in their faces. Their companion stirred on the floor again and they hurried to him. Egar gave them the space, relieved. Bottle still ready at his side. They propped the injured man up between them, got his arms over their shoulders, and turned for the door. One of them found some small piece of face-saving bravado on the way out. He twisted awkwardly about with his half of the burden. The anger still hadn’t won out on his face, but it was hardening that way.

“You know, Klarn isn’t going to wear this.”

Egar jutted his chin again. “Try him. Klarn Shendanak is steppe to the bone. He’s going to see this exactly the way it is—a lack of fucking respect where it’s due. Now get out. ”

They went, out into the rain, left the door swinging wide in their wake. The Dragonbane found himself alone in a room full of staring locals.

Presently, someone got up from a table and shut the door. Still, no one spoke, still they went on staring at him. He realized the whole exchange had been in Majak, would have been incomprehensible to everybody there.

He was still holding the jag-ended bottle stump.

He laid it down on the table he’d swiped the bottle from in the first place. Its owner flinched back in his chair. Egar sighed. Looked over at the innkeeper.

“You’d better keep that door barred for the time being,” he said in Naomic. Too the room more generally, he added: “Anyone has family home alone right now, you might want to drink up and get on back to them.”

There was some shuffling among the men, some muttering back and forth, but no one actually got up or moved for the door. They were all still intent on him, the barefoot old thug with iron in his hair and his shirt hanging open on a pelt going gray.

They were all still trying to understand what had just happened.

He sympathized. He’d sort of hoped—

Fucking Shendanak.

He picked his way carefully through the shards of broken glass on the floor, past the stares, and went upstairs to get properly dressed.

He wanted his boots on for the next round.

HE FOUND SHENDANAK HOLDING COURT OUTSIDE THE BIG INN ON LEAGUE street where he’d taken rooms. The Majak-turned-imperial-merchant had ordered a rough wooden table brought out into the middle of the street, and he was sat there in the filtering rain, a flagon of something at his elbow, watching three of his men beat up a Hironish islander. He saw Egar approaching and raised the flagon in his direction.

“Dragonbane.”

“Klarn.” Egar stepped around the roughing up, fended his way past an overthrown punch that skidded inexpertly off the islander’s skull. He shoved the tangle of men impatiently aside. “You want to tell me what the fuck’s going on?”

Shendanak surfaced from the flagon and wiped his whiskers. “Not my idea, brother. Tand’s getting his tackle in a knot, shouting about how these fish-fuckers know something they’re not telling us. Starts in on how I’m too soft to do what it takes to find out what we need to know. Come on, what am I supposed to do? Can’t take that lying down, can I? Not from Tand.”

“So instead, you’re going to take orders from him?”

“Nah, it’s not like that. It’s a competition, isn’t it, boys?” The Majak warriors stopped what they were doing to the islander for a moment. Looked up like dogs called off. Shendanak waved them back to the task. “Tand sets his mercenaries to interrogating. I do the same with the brothers. See who finds out where that grave and that treasure is first. Thousand elemental payoff and a public obeisance for the winner.”

“Right.” Egar sat on the edge of the table and watched as two of the Majak held the islander up while a third planted heavy punches into his stomach and ribs. “Menith Tand’s a piece-of-shit slave trader with a hard-on for hurting people, and he’s bored. What’s your excuse?”

Shendanak squinted at him thoughtfully.

“Heard about your little run-in with Nabak. You really bottle him over some fishwife whore you wouldn’t share? Doesn’t sound like you.”

“I bottled him because he pulled a knife on me. You need to keep a tighter grip on your cousins, Klarn.”

“Oh, indeed.”

It was hard to read what was in Shendanak’s voice. Abruptly, his eyes widened and he grabbed the flagon again, lifted it off the tabletop as the islander staggered back into the table and clung there, panting. The man was bleeding from the mouth and nose, his lips were split and torn where they’d been smashed repeatedly into his teeth. Both his eyes were blackening closed and his right hand looked to have been badly stomped. Still, he pushed himself up off the table with a snarl. The Majak bracketed him, dragged him—

“You know what?” said Shendanak brightly. He gestured with the flagon “I really don’t think this one knows anything. Why don’t you let him go? Just leave him there. Go on and have a drink before we start on the next one. It’s thirsty work, this.”

The Majak looked surprised, but they shrugged and did as they were told. One of them gave the beaten man a savage kick behind the knee and then spat on him as he collapsed in the street. Laughter, barked and bitten off. The three of them went back into the inn, shaking out their scraped knuckles and talking up the blows they’d dealt. Shendanak watched them through the door, waited for it to close before he looked back at Egar.